Effects of Altered Auditory and Oro-sensory Feedback on Speech Naturalness in Persons With and Without Stuttering

Abstract

Stuttering is one of the disorders of speech fluency influenced by many factors affecting the naturalness of speech. One of the major goals in stuttering management is providing natural sounding speech irrespective of the technique(s) adopted. The naturalness is measured with respectto various fluency parameters such as rate, continuity, effort, stress, intonation and rhythm, articulation and breathing pattern. There are many fluency inducing conditions of which altered auditory feedback (AAF) strategies are widely used with various wearable devices, especially in adults with stuttering who will not benefit much with the traditional approaches. The present study aimed to examine the speech naturalness induced by 3 AAF conditions [delayed auditory feedback (DAF), frequency altered feedback (FAF) and masking auditory feedback (MAF)] and altered oro-sensory feedback in adult persons with and without stuttering (PWS and PWNS). The fluent speech samples from 25 PWS and 25 PWNS in the age range of 18 to 25 years under different AAF and altered oro-sensory feedback conditions were given to experienced speech-language pathologists (SLPs) for judging speech naturalness compared to baseline without altered feedback condition. The analyses of results revealed that speech naturalness ratings were significantly poorer in PWS compared to PWNS in all the conditions. The results are discussed with regard to the nature of variability and the influence of various feedback conditions on speech naturalness.